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Copyright© 2004 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

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Misers may be difficult to live with but they make great ancestors!

In an e-mail discussion this week, a comment was made about a particular CD-ROM. The disk in question contains information extracted from a book published many years ago. The CD-ROM's database is easily searched. In this case, the CD does not contain images of the book's pages.

The old book contained transcribed records that were extracted years ago by a trained genealogist who examined original handwritten records. The CD-ROM contains information extracted from the book. This is a double extraction: the first was from hand-written records to a printed book, and the second was from that book to electronic format.

This week's e-mail discussion centered about source citations. One person felt that the CD was insufficient in that it did not list the book's page numbers where the information was found. The claim was that genealogists who use this CD-ROM would not be able to properly cite the source of the information they obtained from the disk.

My correspondent felt that a genealogist who uses the CD-ROM should cite the page number where the information was found in the old book. I would like to offer a contrary view.

I recently read a message on one of the online message boards that disturbed me a bit. Apparently this person is rather new to genealogy and was experiencing some frustrations. He wrote, "I'm bummed though because I am not having any luck with Family Tree Maker on finding any of my ancestors. Any advice on that?"

While genealogists have long dreamed of the day when we could sit at home and do all our family tree research via computer, we certainly have not arrived at that Utopian state yet. There are millions of genealogy records available today on CD-ROM and online, but the data available in electronic format at this time only scratches the surface. The writer of this online message apparently was not aware of the other resources available. From his brief message I would assume that he had only looked at the CD-ROM disks bundled with the program he is using. I must say that several people jumped in to answer his online remarks, and the writer soon received a lot of good advice. However, for every person who asks such a question, I wonder if there are many more who never ask.

HeritageQuest Online division has released PERSI Online.

The Periodical Source Index, or PERSI, is the largest subject index to genealogical and historical periodical articles in the world. Created by the foundation and department staff of the Historical Genealogy Department of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, PERSI is widely recognized as being a vital source for genealogical researchers.

PERSI is a comprehensive subject index covering genealogy and local history periodicals written in English for many countries since 1800 as well those published in French about Canadian genealogy topics. The time period of the articles ranges from the 1700s to the present. More than 1.6 million index citations from more than 6,500 journals are represented in this work.

PERSI is an index; it tells where the original articles can be found. When finding a reference, the user may need to go elsewhere to find the original article. While some articles are available online, many are available only in print. The PERSI database supplies information about how to order copies of the original articles. The required work should be minimal.

I have not yet had an opportunity to use the new implementation of PERSI. However, several people whose opinions I respect have reported that it is very easy to use and quickly produces results.

ProQuest's online products are not available directly to private individuals. I work at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and can report that visitors to the society in Boston can access this database at no additional charge. I know that many public libraries and most of the other large genealogy societies also offer similar services to their visitors.

The University of North Texas Library has a fascinating project underway that will benefit historians as well as genealogists. The university’s Web servers now contain "The Laws of Texas 1822-1897" by H.P.N. Gammel. This resource is now available to researchers throughout the world at no charge.

Quoting from the website:

Genealogy Online For Dummies, 4th Edition by Matthew and April Helm has just been released. The new edition is a complete rewrite of the popular book. It focuses more on using both offline and online resources together to reach research goals, instead of the limited approach of using only online sites. The book also includes a bonus CD with Family Tree Maker and Legacy Family Tree software, plus various genealogical utilities and trial programs.

As a privately-held company, MyFamily.com does not publicly disclose its financial information. However, it was interesting to see some numbers mentioned in the Wall Street Journal's "Making Them Pay" article on March 22, 2004. According to the Journal, MyFamily.com has annual revenues of $100 million per year and has been profitable since the third quarter of 2001. The majority of that revenue is generated by the company's Ancestry.com Web site.

By the way, if you have an interest in the selling of information for a fee on the Internet, you will want to read the excellent "Making Them Pay" article. It describes the method by which several companies, including the Wall Street Journal itself, have learned to profitably sell information online. It is a long article that quotes many companies, with MyFamily.com being mentioned frequently.

The same edition also has an excellent article on "How to Get Past Spam Filters" that every e-mail newsletter publisher should read.

The Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library in Salem, Massachusetts, has long been a major source of high-quality genealogy information. I always felt a fondness for the place, as it is the first genealogy library I ever visited, many years ago. The same library also houses the original 1692 Salem witchcraft trial papers and early works by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is with sadness that I read about the library's recent reduction in staffing levels and operating hours.

Last month, the library laid off five employees. I am not sure how many employees were working in the library, but I doubt if it was more than six or seven. Even worse, the library previously was open four days a week but now will only be available to genealogists for one and a half days a week. Finally, the admission fee for visitors is increasing from $10 to $15. (Salem residents, Peabody Essex Museum members, and certain "qualified researchers" will still be able to view the collection for free. The phrase "qualified researchers" apparently does not include those researching their family trees.) The announcement insinuates an elitist attitude in which "qualified researchers" will have frequent access to the library's holdings but those researching their family history will not. I would question what makes anyone "qualified."

In these days of economic cutbacks, reading about a valuable library reducing staff and operating hours is not unusual. However, a seventy-five per cent reduction in availability does sound radical, even today. Financial concerns are the obvious cause.

The reduction in library availability will result in fewer people joining the museum. It will also result in fewer people paying the visitor’s fee at the library's front door. The result is a guarantee of lower income in the future, a vicious circle that will be difficult to break. I suspect that other genealogy libraries and museums will be closely watching the Peabody Essex Museum's future success or lack thereof.

In contrast to the previous article, a report from the influential British government Archives Task Force published this week calls for new measures to expand access to archives through an online Archives Gateway.

The report, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future, comes at a time when genealogy use of the UK's archives is at an all-time high. It points to ways in which access to these resources can be developed.

According to this report, individuals make more than 1.5 million visits per year to archives, and 75% of those visitors are undertaking private or personal research. Seventy-two percent of users see archives as a way of strengthening family or community identity, and there were 85 million information requests handled by the National Archives websites in 2002/2003. In the last 10 years, demand for archives has grown by over 50%.

In contrast to recently-reported actions from other archives and libraries, the Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future report strongly encourages the expansion of services to individuals, especially to genealogists. The report calls for new measures to broaden access to archives for people from all walks of life. Its key recommendation is for an easily-accessible online Archives Gateway which would revolutionize access to and participation in archives. The Archives Gateway would lead people of all ages and knowledge to archival content of interest and support them in creating their own documentary records.

This seems to be a fascinating contradiction with the article about the Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library: one organization is sharply curtailing services to genealogists while the other wishes to greatly expand its services to genealogists. It should be interesting to watch and see which has the better results.

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administrations Regional Libraries on both coasts are conducting seminars of interest to genealogists in their areas:

In Seattle, Washington, the National Archives and Records Administration will hold a series of genealogy workshops from 10 AM to 12:30 PM each Tuesday, starting April 6 and continuing through May. The workshops will be held at the agency's Sand Point office, 6125 Sand Point Way N.E., in Seattle.

Workshops, which will cost $10 each, will cover a different topic each week, including beginning genealogy, census records, and military records.

Back on the east coast, the National Archives Regional Library in Waltham, Massachusetts, is also offering free genealogical workshops. The beginner level workshops will be offered at the Regional Archives building, located at 380 Trapelo Road in Waltham, Mass., according to the schedule below. Participants will learn what they need to know in order to locate records as well as what one might expect to find in the records. Behind-the-scenes tours of the archives will be given at 1:30 before workshops marked with an asterisk (*). The workshop will follow the tour at 2:00 PM.

Workshop and tour space is limited to 20 participants. Call (866) 406-2379 to register and for more details. There is no fee. Light refreshments or coffee will be served.

National Archives in Waltham also will host an open house on Patriot’s Day, Monday April 19, 2004, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Activities will include presentations by National Archives staff about what resources are available to the public and what National Archives staff do. In addition, participants will receive a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Archives-Northeast Region’s archival collection and the Record Center operation. Coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

There will be two sessions. The first session will run from 9:00 to 10:30. The second session will run from 10:30 to12:00. Space is limited to 40 participants for each session. Please call (781) 663-0130 to register. Everyone who is interested is invited to attend.

Elizabeth Wilson-Agin is a geophysicist who owns her own consulting business specializing in finding unmarked graves. "I'm the only one in the United States who does what I do that I know of," Wilson-Agin said. "Surprisingly, I get a lot of people that call me and want my help finding unmarked graves."

The Kansas resident uses the latest technology to examine the soil. Ground-penetrating radar has been used successfully in some locations. While Wilson-Agin has that technology available, she says that the radar does not work well in the predominantly clay soil of Kansas. Her primary tool is an electro-magnetic conductivity meter, supplemented by a number of other high-tech devices.

With an undergraduate degree from Kansas University in archaeology and a master's in earth sciences/ geophysics from Emporia State, Wilson-Agin does not advertise at all. Almost all her clients find her via word-of-mouth referrals. "I've been hired by a funeral company, a cemetery board, and the county hired me at one location," she said. "There was the potential for land development near where they thought unmarked graves might exist, so they needed to know for sure before they could proceed.

A Nashville, Indiana, man faces trial on charges that he moved grave markers at a historic cemetery to make room for a septic system for his home. Daniel B. Scalpelli, 48, was charged in December 2001 with disturbing Fleetwood Cemetery as he worked on the septic system for his new home near Morgantown.

Scalpelli faces a felony charge of disturbing a cemetery without a permit and misdemeanor charges of cemetery mischief and moving a grave memorial without a recording. His bench trial, before Brown Circuit Judge Judith Stewart, is scheduled to begin this week.

If you live in Texas, have Scottish ancestry, and have some free time in early June, you might want to visit the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games in Arlington. Heck, for this invent you can even invent a Scottish ancestor or two for a few days. I don't think anyone will mind.

June 4 through 6 will see the second-largest Scottish festival in the United States. This year's event will feature Celtic music, a kilted golf tournament, a fiddle workshop, kids' activities, genealogy and history seminars, a Gaelic-language seminar, the bonniest knee contest, Scotch tasting, competitions, sheep-dog demonstrations, shortbread contest, falconry demonstrations, and more.

I am trying to picture Texans playing golf while wearing kilts. It certainly is a mental exercise.

The Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games will be held at the University of Texas at Arlington, Maverick Stadium, 1309 W. Mitchell St., Arlington, Texas. Admission fees are modest: Friday or Sunday admission is $10 for adults, $6 for ages 13-17, $4 for ages 6-12. The Saturday rate goes up to $15 for adults and $7 for teens. Weekend passes range from $9 to $25, and the Friday night "Howdy BBQ" is $25.

A new book by Allan Morrison claims that rock legend Elvis Presley is a descendant of Andrew Presley, who married Elspeth Leg in Lonmay, Scotland, on Aug. 27, 1713. Eight generations later, Elvis was born in 1935.

I noted the following on a Web site recently:

Clicking through the various pages of this Web site produces a plethora of "information." I especially noticed the Digital Ancestor MacroNucleic Eugenics Depository (DAMNED). Another item that caught my eye said, "See our Clearance Specials on eBay."

The PR Budget for this newsletter is $0.00. I rely upon "word of mouse" advertising in which you recommend this newsletter to your friends. This newsletter is a private project of mine, and I have a zero budget for a publicity campaign to get more readers.

Thanks.

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